Stalker (9780307823557) (2 page)

“Please sit down,” he said. “We’d like to sit down, too.”

He dabbed at his forehead again, and Grannie said, “We save the air conditioner for the summer heat. Don’t need to spend all that money in the fall when there’s a good breeze comes up.”

Jennifer obediently squeezed around the ironing board, careful not to jolt the tip-tilted iron that wobbled in place, and perched on a nearby chair, sitting as straight as its ladder back. The two men lowered themselves heavily onto the lumpy sofa, squashing the upholstered bouquets of spring flowers that had faded years ago.

The shorter detective, whose brown hair was lighter than his partner’s, had the faint beginnings of jowls, and
his sunglasses had dug creases in his cheeks. He pulled out a pad and pen and asked the first question: “You’re Jennifer Lee Wilcox?”

“ ’Course she is,” Grannie said. “I told you so already.”

The taller man nodded and seemed almost to smile. “All this has to be official,” he said, as confidentially as though Grannie were a third partner.

She leaned back in her chair, satisfied. Jennifer said, “Yes, I am.”

“You’re one of Bobbie Trax’s friends?”

“Yes.”

“ ’Bout her closest friend,” Grannie added.

“You knew Estelle Trax?”

“Yes. Bobbie’s mother.”

“Nobody calls her ‘Estelle,’ ” Grannie said. “They call her Stella.”

“You know that Stella Trax was murdered?”

“She knows. I told her when she got home a little while ago.” Grannie sat upright, blinking against the cigarette smoke that drifted upward from the corner of her mouth. “First she’d heard of it, too. She liked to have keeled over. Dropped all my fresh-ironed shirts.”

The taller detective leaned toward Grannie. “We’ll let them do the talking. You and I will just listen,” he said.

Grannie smiled at him.

The men seemed to be waiting for her to say something, so Jennifer nodded. “It’s the way Grannie said. She heard about it on the television news. She told me when I came in. Only they’re wrong. Bobbie couldn’t have killed her mother.”

“Where had you been?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said Bobbie couldn’t have done it. She’s not the kind of person who would kill someone.”

“Jennifer,” the taller detective said, “it’s our job to get information. We’d appreciate it if you’d just answer our questions.”

“But I can tell you things about Bobbie that other people might not know. We’re good friends. She talks to me about things that bother her. She laughs away a lot of her problems. She doesn’t hold them inside and then blow up. She isn’t like that!”

“We’ll ask you about Bobbie Trax later.”

“What about her stepbrothers? Maybe they did it. Elton’s even been in prison, and Darryl is a real loser.”

The detective who had been asking the questions put down his pen to mop his forehead again. “We’d appreciate it if you’d just tell us where you were before you came home this afternoon. It would help us all if you’d cooperate.”

Jennifer gulped back the words she would like to shout at this man and took a deep breath. “I went to the seawall after school was out. I like to sit there and do my homework.” A trickle of sweat rolled down her backbone. “It’s cool there with the wind coming off the bay.”

She expected a word of agreement, some response, but there was none, and she had to remind herself that this was an interrogation, not a conversation.

“You said that you and Bobbie Trax are good friends.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been to her house often?”

“Yes.”

“While her mother was there?”

“Yes.”

“Then could you tell us something about their relationship?”

“Relationship?” Jennifer knew she must sound like an
echo chamber. She stammered, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Did they get along with each other? Did they argue? How did Bobbie feel about her mother?”

How did she feel? How would anyone feel? Stella Trax had made it clear that motherhood was a pain and a bore. But Jennifer was not about to tell these detectives anything that might make things more difficult for Bobbie. “I don’t know,” she said.

The questions went on, sometimes circling back to those that had been asked before. A fly batted and buzzed against the ceiling, and the air was stale with heat. There were questions she would have liked to ask them: How did Stella Trax die? How did they know she was murdered? What made them think that Bobbie committed the murder? But there was a formality about these men that frightened her, that kept her from asking. So she sat there, calmly repeating her answers.

“When was the last time you saw Bobbie Trax?”

“Yesterday, at school.”

“You didn’t wonder why she wasn’t in class today?”

Jennifer shrugged. “I supposed she was sick. A lot of kids have that twenty-four-hour bug. I was going to call her after supper to find out.”

The taller detective pulled a small package from his coat pocket. Carefully he unwrapped the brown paper and took out a wrinkled scarf. It was red, with a wild-patterned design of rock musicians and notes. “Have you seen this before?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jennifer said. “I gave that to Bobbie a couple of years ago. It was a joke—kind of a private joke between us, because Bobbie liked the drummer in that group and—”

“Thank you,” he said as he folded the scarf and put it back into his pocket.

“Why did you ask me about the scarf?” With a shock like a slam between her shoulder blades, Jennifer knew what they would answer. Gasping, hurting, she stammered, “You haven’t told me. How was Bobbie’s mother murdered?”

Grannie spoke up. “The TV said she was strangled—with a scarf.”

“That’s the scarf? But it doesn’t mean Bobbie did it! Anyone could have picked up that scarf! You’re wrong about Bobbie if you think she murdered her mother!”

“Calm down,” he said. “We’re trying to gather facts to get to the truth. You can help us do this. Just sit back and take a couple of deep breaths and pull yourself together. We’ll wait until you’re ready.”

Jennifer’s breath came out in shudders, as though she’d been crying. She tried not to think, to make her mind a blank, until finally a gray numbness—like a thick fog creeping in from the ocean—crawled from her mind throughout her body. Her fingers unclenched and were still.

“Ready?” the detective asked.

“Yes.”

There was a pause. The detective with the pad and pen leaned toward her just a fraction. The other one did, too. It was coming—the question Jennifer had expected, had been afraid of.

“Jennifer,” he said, “do you know where Bobbie Trax is now?”

Jennifer looked at him without blinking, as steadily as she could manage. She gripped the arms of her chair so tightly that her fingers ached as she answered, “No, I don’t.”

It’s hot. Sticky heat. Itchy heat. Head hurts. Maybe that’s why my head hurts. The damned heat. Yeah. Think about the heat. Don’t think about anything else. It happened, so it had to be. Don’t think about it. What’s done is done. Don’t think.

Pure luck that the kid went out.

The heat smells like oily gluck from the ship channel. Maybe that’s why my head hurts. Don’t think. I guess it’s good that I got in so easy, and no one but Stella was there. I wasn’t about to let anyone get in my way.

Just one thing worries me. Where did Stella keep the stuff? I should have made her tell me. I suppose if it’s hid that good it might never turn up.

But what if someday it does?

Jennifer stood at the screen door, watching the detectives’ unmarked gray sedan wobble over the potholes in the street, brake lights blinking like two sore eyes. Beyond this street of small frame houses, marked with explosions of unkempt lavender and pink crepe myrtle bushes and wind-twisted water oaks, rose the uptown skyline of the city, the picture-postcard backdrop for the curving sweep of the bay. She had been born in Corpus Christi, and she liked it; liked the tropical shrubbery overflowing the yards; the breeze that consistently blew in from the sea; the sudden, drenching rainstorms; the weekend sailboats that dotted the water with small rainbows; and the heavy steamers that plodded through the channel, under the soaring bridge, into the harbor.

She knew this city well. But now she had the strange sensation that she had been moved to an unfamiliar place without landmarks, that she was lost and alone, and the terror of it made her tremble.

“Don’t see how you can be cold in this weather, but
instead of just standin’ there, shiverin’, go put on a sweater.” Grannie’s voice, directly behind her, startled Jennifer so much that she jumped. “You did good, the way you spoke up nice and polite to those police,” Grannie added. “I know you were feelin’ real bad.” The matter-of-factness in her voice broke the spell.

“Grannie, I’ve got to go out,” Jennifer said.

Grannie’s eyes narrowed. Jennifer didn’t know if it was protection from her cigarette’s smoke, or if she was trying to peer inside Jennifer’s mind. “Who’re you goin’ to see?”

“Mark,” Jennifer answered.

Grannie studied her another moment, then nodded, satisfied. “Go ahead. You had a shock. Mark will talk to you, help you feel better about what happened.”

As Jennifer grasped the metal latch on the door, Grannie’s tone changed, and a sigh skipped through her words. “Don’t mind about fixin’ supper. I’ll just heat up some leftovers.”

“Oh,” Jennifer said, and she took a step back into the room. “I forgot all about supper. I’ll make it.”

“No.” Grannie held her arm. “I said I’d do it. Just leftovers. No problem. Tomorrow night’s different, though.” She tucked her chin in and scowled. “That woman who works at the flower-plant nursery with your daddy is comin’ by to supper.”

“Her name is Gloria. I keep telling you that, Grannie.”

“Makes me no never mind what her name is. We just got to put together somethin’ nicer than usual for supper, or your daddy isn’t gonna be happy.”

“I’ll think of something. Maybe pot roast.” Jennifer hurried out the door and down the porch steps, leaving her grandmother’s words for her own ears: “What he sees in that woman—”

It wasn’t far to Mark’s house. They even took the same route to and from school. Convenient. Maybe that’s why they had started going together. A year ago he was a new student in school. He had suddenly appeared at her side as she ran down the steps of the red brick building, glad that school was over for the day, and said, “I’ll walk you home.”

She had stopped, looking up at him, interested because from the moment she first saw him, passing him in the hallway at lunch period, she had been well aware of his blond good looks. She was even more interested now, because his eyes were as warm as his smile.

“Do you know where I live, Mark?”

“I wanted to know, so I made it a point to find out.” He paused. “You know my name.”

“I wanted to know,” she had said, and they laughed.

Now she needed to talk to Mark. And she needed his car.

She found him where she thought he would be—in the garage, tinkering with the motor of his old moss-green chevy that looked shrunken inside its four oversize tires, on a frame that lifted it high in the air.

He smiled as he saw her. He wiped his hands on the heat of his jeans and came toward her eagerly.

“You haven’t heard about Bobbie’s mother,” she said.

“Bobbie’s mother?”

“Sit down,” Jennifer said. She pulled Mark to a patch of thickly tufted lawn next to the driveway, and she told him all that she knew.

When she’d finished, he kept staring at her. “Oh, God!” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“I need to borrow your car.”

He blinked, bewildered at the change in topic. “What
for? I mean, I’ve got to be at the supermarket by six. I’ve got a late shift this week.”

“I know you do, and you’ll get to work on time. It’s getting close to six o’clock now. I can drop you off. When the store closes I’ll be there to pick you up. Okay?”

His mind had apparently clicked into gear, because he said, “You’re going to wherever Bobbie is. Right?”

“Do I have to tell you?”

“No. You don’t need to tell me. It’s easy to figure out what you’re planning. Did she call you?”

“No. I haven’t heard from her.”

“Then how do you know she’ll be there?”

“I just know.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

Jennifer took his hand and held it. The strength in his fingers kept hers from trembling. “Thanks anyway, but I don’t think you should. You’d get in trouble at the market if you didn’t show up. Remember how rotten the manager acted when you were out with the flu.”

“He’s nothing but talk. He was shorthanded then and didn’t care why I was out.”

“I don’t want you to go with me. I just need your car to get there.”

Mark looked at his car, then back at Jennifer. “Okay,” he said slowly. “But remember she goes faster than it feels like, so watch your speed. And if you put her into four-wheel drive the clutch still sticks a little, so when you move the stick through keep it slow and easy.”

“Thanks,” Jennifer said. She stretched up to kiss him lightly, automatically.

He patted her shoulder, but he was clumsy and awkward, and his touch was hard enough to bounce her forward, off-balance. She knew he was trying to tell her he understood that the fear she felt for Bobbie had flooded
every particle of her mind, leaving no room for any other emotion. “Come on,” he said. He stood, pulling Jennifer to her feet. “Keys are in the ignition. You can drive me to the store, and that way I can see how you handle her.”

She knew how to drive Mark’s car. She had driven it a couple of times before, and they both knew she was a good driver. But she patiently allowed Mark the ritual of trauma as he turned his prized possession over to someone else.

Jennifer pulled up against the yellow-painted curb in front of the store’s wide glass windows and slid the gear into park. Inside, among the gaudy array of merchandise, customers, and signs, she could see the manager scowling at whoever dared to stop in this no-parking zone.

Mark had seen him, too. He opened the door on his side, stretching his long legs toward the ground and aiming his kiss somewhere near her right ear. “Good luck,” he said; and as he shut the door and leaned his arms on the open window, he added, “Tell Bobbie—uh—tell her—”